Nobody Cares That Tampa Bay Is 2-0

As we approach Sunday’s Week 3 NFL action, we certainly have a fair share of teams that we never would have imagined would be 2-0 at this point in the season. Jay Cutler is currently the league’s best passer for the 2-0 Chicago Bears, the defense has been strangely great for the 2-0 Miami Dolphins, the Pittsburgh Steelers are rapey-free for two more games and are still 2-0, and 2-0 Kansas City is making the best of being the best of the AFC West worst. Houston’s strong start is arguable and everyone expected New Orleans and Green Bay to be sitting pretty. And then there’s Tampa Bay.

The Buccaneers are tied with the Saints at 2-0 in the NFC South after opening with wins over Cleveland and Carolina. And while those are two pretty awful teams, you’d think that people in Tampa would be able to get behind their Bucs after a very surprising start. Especially when the 2-0 Steelers are being led into town by Chaz Batch. But nope, the Bucs-Steelers game will be Braylon-Edwardsed blacked out in Florida (Ed. – Hooray!) because Tampa fans simply aren’t buying the hype. Somewhere Josh Freeman and… um… I don’t know, someone else who plays for the Bucs are crying.

The team announced on Thursday that it had failed to sell out their stadium by Sunday’s 1 p.m. ET deadline. So the game vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers will not air locally, as NFL rules demand for games that fail to sell out 72 hours before kickoff.

It’s the second straight blackout for the Bucs, who have warned that they could fail to sell out many games this season.

The Bucs also refused to accept the ticket buy-back rule, which allows a team to purchase leftover tickets at 1/3 of the face value and save the team from the blackout. Now I’m no TV NFL market analyst expert person, but this is a city with a Super Bowl victory in the past 10 years and a fan base that has been terribly bandwagon-driven but still very loyal in winning seasons. I think they deserve worse than a black out. People in Tampa should have their cable blocked during the entire game with the only available programming being reruns of old Bucs games.

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Worst 2-0 team? Miami. Beating Buffalo and Brett Favre by less than a million is a joke.

By: really?

09.24.2010 @ 12:07 PM

About to be 3-0 when we stomp the jets papa!

By: Upstate Underdog

09.24.2010 @ 12:08 PM

Not sold out and you can bet there will be more fans there cheering for the Steelers than for the Bucs.

Plus, all the bandwagon Bucs fans are too busy riding the Rays bandwagon right now.

By: MenaceIISobriety

09.24.2010 @ 12:12 PM

Does that mean we’ll get THE GAT DAM JACKSONVILLE JAGOFF GAME instead? Sometimes I hate Central Florida: we are often deprived of Miami football, which is actually fun to watch.

By: Burnsy

09.24.2010 @ 12:18 PM

My worst Sunday mornings are waking up to see that the two games are Jacksonville and Tampa. But then I go to a bar and all is forgotten.

By: DimpieChimplins

09.24.2010 @ 12:25 PM

NFL Ticket changed my life. No seriously, my muscles are in a state of atrophy.

By: Nathan DeGraaf

09.24.2010 @ 2:21 PM

Our owner is spending the least amount of money of any team this year, the weather forecast for Sunday is 93F with a 60% chance of rain, most of the fans there will be annoying Pittsburghers. You go to the gotdamn game if that all sounds so appealing to you.

By: Burnsy

09.24.2010 @ 3:12 PM

You clearly don’t live in Florida if you’re bitching about 93 degrees and rain in September. Boo hoo, you have a professional football team. If you don’t want it, Orlando will take it. By the way, your team is 2-0 with the lowest payroll in the NFL, suck it up and support it. It’s called being a fan.

By: nathan degraaf

09.24.2010 @ 5:11 PM

Lived in Tampa 15 years. Currently live in Tampa. I can get tickets for free from a friend of mine and I still will not go. The Glazers are cheap and are making no effort to please their fans. Many of us are boycotting because of it. All due respect to the hard work of our boys out there, but the Glazers are shitty owners and many right thinking people do not want to make them richer.

By: Leapin_Lizards

09.25.2010 @ 4:07 PM

Step 1: make entire stadium a pirate ship replica

Step 2: free eye patches

Step 3: profit

By: Leapin_Lizards

09.25.2010 @ 4:08 PM

@ nathan – Jay Glazer owns the Bucs? No wonder they just signed Wanderlei Silva this week.